Lesson(s) Recap

My, apparently doubtful, co-pilot for Christmas shopping this past week.

One thing I’m hoping to do in the new year is more lesson recaps. I started this blog to journal what happens with Katai and my journey and since not much has been happening over this past year I’m not too disappointed that I haven’t been blogging as much but I do still wish that I’d been documenting more of it. With that in mind I’m going to try to catch up a little on what’s going on now so that I can start the new year in a good place.

First, I don’t think I’ve talked much about my current lesson format or it was a long time ago and we’ve all forgotten so let’s start there. I’m currently taking e/o week lessons with the trainer that works at the barn and rents the house there. She has a lot of training horses (and a couple of her own) and teaches lessons to a good chunk of the people who board at my barn. We’ll call her K. She is also how I found this barn. I’d followed her on Instagram knowing that she was in MN and she has a fantastic account. I always drooled over the really cute arena and after commenting on one of her Instagram stories and having her respond I finally asked where she boarded and found out about my current barn.

The results of our labor. Lots of tasty things, a few gifts, and some yummy alcohol

 There were so many reasons why I moved but the ability to work with her as a coach was a big one and luckily it’s proving to be just as great as I’d hoped. K is so, so low key. She can get really intense when needed but she’s just much more relaxed than previous instructors I’ve worked with and I really love it. I’m an adult and I do this for fun but my fun is to work on it really intensely and take myself way too seriously so having a coach who just is a little more relaxed and not such a perfectionist (which I so am) is extremely refreshing and really helps me not stress or dread my lessons. She’s really great about pushing and asking for new things but also not pushing past a point of comfort and even better she’s really got Katai pegged (probably since she’s very like her own mare) and is very thoughtful about how we approach things so that we don’t push Katai so far past her comfort zone that she hates the work. She does this in her own work with her mare too sometimes doing just groundwork, taking her out on the trails, or riding in a side pull. I can’t even tell you how nice it is to work with someone that knows how much those sorts of things can still help progress with dressage and just building a relationship with your horse.

Don’t get me wrong, I still miss Jane who was almost like a second mom, therapist, and friend. I’m not sure if I’ll work with an instructor who is so keyed in to what I need to do to improve and who holds me to such high standards again. Hopefully I’ll have that opportunity but if not, the skills she taught me are helping me in everything still so I’m incredibly appreciative.

 

One of the bf's extended family Christmases.
This was only about half of the gifts that showed up.

Back to the lesson recaps though! Our first couple of lessons were really allowing K to get used to me and Katai. Both of us were also incredibly unfit (and getting used to riding in a very small arena) so they were pretty messy and there were some mini meltdowns on Katai’s part. Fast forward to about 3 or 4 lessons in though and I had a HUGE breakthrough with the canter mechanic. Jane had been using the wording of keeping my body up and down which I think was making me shut down Katai’s stride and causing her to get sticky and pissy. I’m sure that Jane didn’t mean what I was doing but I couldn’t figure out how to do it differently. K had me concentrating on sitting up into the stride, without getting light in my seat, and half halting at the height of the stride. I had been thinking more of half halting on the down feeling and holding myself into her back. With K’s help calling out when I should be half halting I was able to feel it and it was such an amazing thing. Since then I’ve been able to replicate it and with that we’re finally getting Katai’s canter (and my canter mechanic) truly under control.

We’ve also had some nice breakthroughs with some of the items, or one main item really, that were getting us stuck in our 2^ndlevel progress. Basically Katai doesn’t listen to my halting cues or she gets so upset that she has a meltdown and we can’t continue. K has been so great about making it more light and playful and helping make the change without demanding it and then just moving on. We’re working on all halts and half halts. Everything from when I’m leading, to lunging, to riding at all gaits and in all movements. That leads us to my last lesson which was on the evening of my birthday.

 

So tough to choose exactly the right thing for Mimosa's. I decided to get bf's opinion

Unfortunately I’d had an awful day (really tough conversation with a staff person right at the end of the day) at work and my anxiety was high which I let K know when we walked in. K is really good at not babying anyone but I think she could tell that I was a little shaky and emotional so she let me know that we’d try to keep it pretty easy and just do stuff that I felt like handling. Recently there have been a couple of days where the canter wheels fell off the bus so we decided to work primarily on walk and trot since she knows I can handle the on my own as/if it comes up and it was unlikely we'd make progress with it that night.

To start we worked on getting her really through at the walk and really “oozing” forward on the bit at the walk. I did some leg yield to get her accepting the leg aids without dropping behind the contact and coming up. After a good long walk warm up with lots of lateral work we went to trot and really focused on keeping her down and forward. We worked on me pushing the contact forward like a wheelbarrow and really allowing her to find her balance at that lower place since her default is to come up. We actually got some really good work like that and did a few nice leg yield in either direction. We took a walk break and talked about what we were going to do next and we decided to work on her 2^nd level balance.

 

Sneak peek of some of my gifts. These were from K, my new trainer

The exercise was to do a shoulder in and then halt part way down the wall. Trot halts are pretty good but still a slight stretch so that goal wasn’t to get a perfect halt, just to introduce that it’s a thing we do and it’s ok to stop, with her weight balanced back, and then trot forward again still in SI. Once we started working on halt, while in a lateral movement, the wheels fell off a little so we did a lot of work accepting the try and making it into more of a game. By the end she was at least trying to understand the question rather than just getting tight and resisting. I’m really happy with how far we’ve come in such a short period of time with only e/o week lessons.

In addition, K is the first training I’ve worked with in a while who will ride her clients’ horses. Because of that and because of my goals for moving up to 2^nd level for at least one show at the end of the year this year I’ve asked if she could start putting a couple of rides on Katai. She’s going to ride for part of my next lesson and then we’ll talk about how many rides and when. I’m not going to be able to afford to do it on a really regular basis at this point but I do think it would help us break through this barrier that we’ve been facing and hopefully, at the least, help K know some of Katai’s quirks that much better as she’s teaching us from the ground.

No new Katai pictures, I've seen her a few times this week but didn't have much time for pictures.
I can't wait to work with her tomorrow!!

Because I've been taking e/o Tuesday lessons and Christmas and New Years are on Tuesday this year we haven't figured out when my next lesson will be yet but likely the week after New Years. I can't wait!

There are some other exciting things that are starting to materialize in my life so fingers crossed I'll have more to share soon :) Also, Merry Christmas!!!

2017 Year in Review: Part the Second

Meeting the famous Connor at NDPC

July

July started with a quite week where I did some prep for Pony Cup. I complained about the heat and recapped NDPC here and here which included meeting Jen and Emilie. I posted about starting "boot camp" with a short amount of time to prep for our next show. The I rounded out the month by posting some confirmation progress photos and sharing some of the photos from my LONG, unexpected 2 week work trip and also did some more complaining about work travel.

August

I started August still on the West Coast but jumped right back into lessons and shared my first lesson recap in a few weeks. Then I posted a thoughtful post about the things I was spending more or less time on. Then we started talking about prep for 2nd level, posted my 500th Post, I rounded out the month by posting our first 1st level recap! 

September

September started my downward trend in motivation to blog and ride. It also marked my 1 year anniversary of riding with Jane. This was followed by a post about my trip out to see Carly and Bobby. I was so glad that I got to meet him this year but it did make it that much sadder when Carly lost him. Then I shared about my farrier drama which really started my downturn in riding. Just as Katai's feet finally got trimmed I sent out my saddle to be adjusted which I whined about. I ended the month with a trip to watch a friend's lesson and then sharing some exciting news!

5 year anniversary/birthday treats

October

In a lot of ways it seems like October was just yesterday. I can't believe it's already 2018! I started the month posting about my 5 year anniversary with Katai :) Then I posted another tough lesson recap,  and an exciting post about having my friends join me. Finally I ended the month with another tough lesson.

November

I really fell off the wagon with blogging in November with only 5 posts for the whole month. I started off by trying to diagnose what had caused her to be so difficult over the previous week or two. Then I hurt my back and shared puppy pictures, and finally shared a lesson recap.

Moshy joined the family and thought
working from home was exhausting

December

Was just as bad as November posting wise. I didn't even post anything until the middle of December where I started with a catchup post about where I'd been, puppy, and a second update post about black Friday shopping. Finally I shared a post recapping my lessons over the past couple of months and then posted these yearly recap posts.

Hopefully I'm back on track and will be able to make my blogging goals for 2018!

Lesson Recaps

Katai has been perfecting her judgmental expression

Since I haven't posted in awhile but still want to sort of track what I'm learning I thought I'd post a few of the themes that we've been working on and then dig into the specifics as needed later.

Position:

Sit back! Shoulders back but mainly belly button back. I have a fair amount of forward curvature to my spine from my hips to my rib cage so I need to focus on pulling my belly button back and straighten my back more so I can really sit on my seat bones.

I need to carry my hands more forward in front of me. I also need to focus on holding (as needed) with my right hand and releasing (when appropriate) with my left hand since that's opposite what they want to do. I also found out that I also carry my left hand out, off the neck and my right hand against the neck but not enough for correct bend to the left (needs more) and opposite what I should be doing for the correct bend to the right. To correct this (since Katai is white) Jane wants me to think about getting white paint on the hand that's on the outside and keeping the inside hand clean.

I also tend to open my fingers when I want to give forward rather than giving from my elbows.

We've also found that I grip with the back of my calf on my right leg when I use my leg and need to use the inside of my leg instead and keep my toe pointed forward. I've been working on strengthening those muscles so that it's easier. Currently I'm too tired to continue to do this correctly through my entire lesson.

I've always known that I have a tough time sinking my weight through my left stirrup. We've discovered that I'm not weighting my left seat bone equally with the right. This causes me to drop my shoulder when turning/bending Katai to the right since I'm uncomfortable sinking my weight into that seat bone.

Trail walk on a nice sunny day

Movements:

We've added lengthenings and I need to focus on pushing without quickening my posting tempo as well as giving forward from my elbows slightly.

We've also started doing some sitting trot. The main focus here has been on my position (above) and on controlling the bounce to control the temp and "bouncing" straight up and down instead of forward and back.

I'm really excited that we've added shoulder in and that we're doing it at the sitting trot! I mainly can feel this one (it's way easier for me than leg yield) but I need to focus on my position and shoulder vs hip angle. I also need to use my outside rein correctly to keep her moving forward and not let her get the angle too steep. Mainly though I need to sit back and keep my weight on my seat bones.

Canter is still coming along. I haven't been riding enough canter so when I get to my lesson we both get tired out pretty quickly. I mainly need to work on strength so that we can start to do more fun things than 20 meter circles and straight around the track of the arena. My seat continues to get better here and when she's not too tired her transitions from trot and tempo are really good.

First snow this year!

Partnership:

I've seriously learned so much about me and Katai and how we should function as a team from Jane since I've been working with her :) I made an offhand comment about how even though she could be sassy, I loved how steady and un-spookable she was during a ride where the snow was falling off the arena roof. Jane quickly pointed out that she doesn't actually think Katai is sassy. Just that she's a high achiever and when she's confused she lets us know and really wants to get it right. It's crazy how altering my thoughts about Katai and helping me think about her behavior in a different light completely changes how we interact.

I'm continuing to chew on some of this and alter my interactions with her. It's also weird to switch from her being a "baby" horse that doesn't know anything with me as the expert to a true partnership. I'm getting there for the most part but sometimes it's still tough to process.

Me:

I've been feeling a bit better. As the seasonal change has quieted down a bit and I've been more diligent about paying attention to how much vitamin D I'm getting it's been better. I also moved! I'm not sure if I'd previously mentioned this but my grandma moved to an apartment closer to my parents and they offered me a really amazingly low rate of rent to stay at her house and keep an eye on things. It's about 10 minutes closer to the barn and the exact same distance from work plus it's in a nicer neighborhood and I only have one roommate. I think the change in scenery is helping a bit as well. At any rate, it's certainly not hurting.

I'm also participating in the Equestrian Blogger Gift Exchange this year which is really exciting! I've been doing some sleuthing and ordered a couple of things during Black Friday. I'm looking forward to sending it out!

Unfortunately I'm still not feeling 100% and have been having a really tough time staying motivated to ride or blog or do much of anything really. Work is also going to be getting really busy over the next couple of months complete with a couple more trips to WA so I'm still not sure exactly how much I'll be able to post. I'm going to try to have more posts in December but I'll see how things go over the next few weeks.